Julia
by iamzia
Summary: The space between us is intense. This is the time where you hold my hand and tell me that everything is okay, that we're okay, but the moment doesn't come. I try not to let it show in my face - that I want your comfort, I want your love. I want you to be on my side - to understand that I have never had any interest in becoming pregnant, let alone pregnant at nineteen...
1. Chapter 1

The kitchen table feels colder than usual. Crumbs from the stale pizza we drunkenly ordered the night before dig into my elbows. I can barely stand to look at you, so I hide my eyes in my left hand and tap the laminate table with my right. We sit like that in silence for a while, that cavern of a pause, the weight of the rest of our lives between us.

You grab a loose cigarette from behind the neglected houseplant and light it quickly with your shaking hands. Almost as quickly, you stumble; "Oh, shit, I'm sorry -" before frantically extinguishing it directly onto the table.

I flush a violent red and find sudden courage to look you in the eyes. "I don't want it." I wish I would have felt better after admitting it, but I don't. To my absolute dread, your face falls and you look away. You bite your lip in that way that you do. I feel my cowardice flood back and I turn my body from you again.

Your voice shakes. "You…"

"I don't." I am trying to be firm because I know I'll start babbling if you start to cry.

"Maybe -"

"No, I don't." I look up into your eyes again, and see the tiny tears welling up at the top of your cheeks. "You're an artist. I'm barely keeping our apartment with that shitty job that takes up all of my time already…" I start to speak with my hands, but stop them immediately when it appears that I am literally grasping at straws. "I came to New York for something bigger. I have dreams. I don't -"

The tears skip over your cheek and spill to your jaw. You close your eyes gently, listening. Despite my determined hostility, I can't stand to see you upset. Especially in this gentle way.

"I just," I sigh. I reach for your hand, and brush it gently with the back of my finger. Calloused and dirty, you flinch momentarily, not expecting this amiable gesture. You open your eyes and look at me intently. "I don't want to be my parents."

The space between us is intense. This is the time where you hold my hand and tell me that everything is okay, that we're okay, but the moment doesn't come. I try not to let it show in my face - that I want your comfort, I want your love. I want you to be on my side - to understand that I have never had any interest in becoming pregnant, let alone pregnant at nineteen, with no money, and no support…

"Maybe it's meant to be," you finally say, feebly hopeful. You grab my hand now and squeeze, tightly.

My only reply is a short sob.

I kept my eyes closed as she came into this world. Tears spilled out from underneath them onto my pink cheeks. My entire body felt completely strained; my hands gripping the sides of the bed, the veins in my head pulsing hard enough to burst. It was oddly quiet in the room, just the quiet encouragement of the nurses, my laboured breathing, and the sound of my flesh being torn in half. I forced myself to stay silent. You offered to hold my hand and I refused.

She arrived screaming. I kept my eyes closed tight, tighter than before, and turned my head violently into my pillow. The tears from pain turned to sheer panic.

"She is so beautiful," you said, breathlessly, and I wanted to kill you for it. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to hear her.

I wanted it to be over.

You left the room while the doctor returned to stitch the bloody cavernous wreck between my legs. They gave me something for the pain but I feel completely numb. You are gone and I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know where you are.

I am alone in the room for a while longer. There is a quiet hum of machinery; carts outside, mumbling staff. I can hear my beating heart over all of it. I am pining for you but I am dreading your return. The longer you take, the heavier it feels - the panic, the strain, the sound of her crying…

You walk in quietly and stand by the doorframe. I look at you, unsmiling.

You're fidgeting, and I can tell you're nervous too. You look in my eyes. "I got to hold her," is all you manage to spit out before the tears begin to fall.

"Jude,"

"I got to hold our daughter," you continue, nervously spattering the words out before me.

"I can't -"

"She is beautiful."

"I _can't._" I reply shortly, my own voice starting to break. "I can't do it."

"I know we don't have money."

"Jude, please,"

"And, and I know that this wasn't in the 'plan', or the 'idea', or-" you're stammering and it makes me feel embarrassed. I can't decide whether to interrupt you immediately or let my silence speak for itself. I close my eyes gently, calmed by your presence, by the security that I was sure we would be coming home alone, before you say - "I thought of a name."

My heart drops. Oh _shit. _

You walk over to the bed and sit next to me. I am staring at the reflection of myself in the pools of your brown eyes. Disheveled and fat, exhausted and flustered. If I had seen this image of myself a few short years ago, I would have been disgusted. You start to draw circles on the hospital sheets. My paper gown is stained with droplets of blood and sweat. _Disgusted_.

"She's going to grow up to be a great woman. Just like you did."

It is hard for me to hold back a sob. It comes out as a stifled hiccup. I can't even legally buy alcohol, and I've grown up_?_ What have I accomplished? I start to shake my head, softly at first.

"We can do this."

I shake my head quickly. "No. No. We have a family willing to adopt who have a better chance at giving her the life she deserves, _please,"_

You're looking at the floor again and I already know you've made up your mind.

"The family, they…" I start to panic. "You didn't…"

You look into my eyes with a fierceness I hardly recognize. For the first time, my body won't let me hold back the tears. It pours out from me like a low moan, and at first I don't recognize it's coming from me. It's over. My life is over.

"Her name is Julia."


	2. Chapter 2

My body never recovered from childbirth. I struggled through postpartum like I expected, after my own mother. My hips seemed to split open, losing my tiny waist to a sagging belly. I refused to breastfeed out of some sort of demented protest, and they ached every day as if to punish me for my sins. For subjecting this poor child to me and my boyfriend. I was put on antidepressants which helped me gain the last additional 30lbs, which wouldn't have mattered if you had stuck around. It would have just been life; something to get through together.

But 'together' wasn't me and you anymore. It was stuffy parent teacher meetings, it was the awkward hellos between pick-ups and drop-offs. And when Julia was found to be slower than her peers, it was the endless education plan meetings about how to better help the disabled child that I didn't fucking want.

She _was_ beautiful, I will give you that. She came to my parents house every other weekend, her hair done neatly in two braids, baby bangs springing out her perfect forehead. Between my parents and yours, she was spoiled with clothes - the hand sewn sundresses from your mom, the stylish denim and trendy cardigans from my mom (despite my protests). She wore plastic, pink and blue glasses strapped around her head; designed to be flexible enough for her to step on or crush or throw at the door in a violent tantrum after you left.

There is a tantrum today.

You look older when you drop her off - like you are distracted by something in the corners of your mind. I usually envy the way that you look at Julia - the energy you seem to have, the excitement to be around her, and just.. I don't know, the _love._ You love her so deeply, and she loves you even more.

But today you are hurrying. You don't remind me about the weather forecast. You don't fill me in on her schoolwork. You are gone as quickly as you arrive. I feel a strange sting, and Julia feels it too, because she is a god damn terror.

I do love our daughter. I am surprised at the love I have for her, sometimes - pushing myself through 30 weeks of a terrible pregnancy, the horrors of childbirth, and the legal battle over custody that ultimately drove us apart. I didn't speak to her in utero. I didn't hold her after she was born. I didn't ever plan on loving her. But I do.

Even in this moment; producing noises that no human body should ever be able to make, pounding two greasy fists on the door - "_Daddy-yy-yy! Daddy!"_

I am patient at first, wringing my hands in the hallway. "Honey, daddy's going to be back soon." She continues as if I weren't standing there at all. "I was thinking we could go to the park and sit on the swings?" I suggest. I hate the park - the mothers with their expensive prams, their immaculate make-up, the nannies with the tiny waists and the endless energy. The snot nosed brats running and hitting and screaming. And the endless waves of judgement to me, hardly engaged at all, fat and alone, reading Dickens as my last form of escapism from this pre-school hell. "Do you want to go to the park, sweetheart?"

"_Daddy no! Daddy _no!"

I approach her, carefully, my feet light on the floor. My head starts to ache and I'm wincing slightly from the sheer volume. "Honey, you get to spend time with your _mommy_, now," I speak a little louder to combat her wails.

After that, I touch her shoulder, gently, but I am filled with an immediate regret. She jumps, startled, stares at me with her bug eyes, face wet, and for a moment there is silence. And then she starts to scream, red faced, with the force of a thousand times the initial anger.

"_No, mommy, I want daddy!" _

That blood curdling scream. The shrieks of a devastated child. And me, beyond reason, at this point, unfortunately. Before I had the chance to stop myself, I hear the crack of my hand hitting her glasses, so hard that she tumbles to the floor. "I want daddy too, you little shit!"

The first time my father struck me, I was only a little older than Julia. I remember the blow - blunt, hard, to the back of my head. Enough that the corners of my eyes started to blur. There was a festival in town and I had been running around. He had asked repeatedly for me to stay closer, that it was too hard to keep track of me and Max. I didn't listen, and I was punished.

I think of this as I try to reason with my decision to hit our daughter, but it was selfish. I was selfish. I couldn't stand to hear her wailing for you, because those feelings were wailing inside of me too. _Come back, daddy. Jude, come home. _

There was more I wanted to yell at Julia, but I'm glad I didn't. I would have to be completely heartless to unload my baggage onto this wounded, helpless creature. The crying stopped for a moment. She looked at me strangely, like she was having difficulty processing, and then tears began to fall, very quietly. She stayed on the ground, holding her perfect, tiny little face, and started to turn her body away from me, as if to hide. To protect.

"I'm sorry," I manage to say in a breath. "Honey, I'm sorry," I take a step back. I wipe my forehead realizing I've started to sweat. I feel heavy and useless walking to the kitchen, and pour myself a shaking glass of wine.

The friction between us started early in the pregnancy. Telling you I didn't want it could have easily been a blip on the radar - something we laughed about as happy parents. But it was beyond that. I felt something growing inside of me, a deep resentment, right alongside our unborn child. And that darkness spilled out of me and poured into our life.

Around the second trimester, my friend Emily came to console me. Not only was she the only feminist I knew, she also had known that I had no interest in becoming a mother. She was the only person on my side, in the end.

We sat at our kitchen table and talked quietly while you slept in the other room.

"Have you thought about, I don't know," she began, avoiding my eye.

"About what? Adoption? Yes, we're looking into it right now, it should be -"

"No, I mean…"

My skin felt cold. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"I, um…" I looked softly out into space. My mind started to race. We had studied this, even protested for safe and legal procedures. But I couldn't stop thinking about the horror stories - the women drinking bleach, the scalding baths, throwing themselves down the stairs. "Not really," I manage to mumble.

"I know it's horrible to think about," she countered, reaching for my hand. "But Lucy, being a mother?"

I think of my own mother, cold and distant, and imagine her alone, in the bathroom, fumbling with a bloody knitting needle; myself, a fetus in utero; her squatted on the tile scraping out her insides with her crochet hook - "Oh." I held my head in my hands. I felt dizzy. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"The only thing worse than giving birth to this child would be... _that_." I frantically changed the subject. "Besides, after it's born, my life can go back to normal. It will have a family that loves it. Me and Jude will stop fighting all the time. And you know, I'm young, my body will bounce back," I say, pathetically, feeling like the ugliest whale to ever breach onto the Atlantic Ocean.

She nodded curtly. "Then that's that."

A bottle and a half of red wine later, Julia has calmed down and is reading to herself quietly on the floor. I rock myself idly on the chair, facing the window, cradling my glass. A glass to calm down, a glass to forget striking our child, a glass to give me the fuzzy affection. To blur the lines of what is really important in this life.

I watch for you to enter the landscape, hands in your pockets, walking intently. The longer it takes, the more wine I drink. Julia seems to grow even quieter, shrinking into a tinier little girl, in the enormous, ugly shadow I've cast over the afternoon. When I think about your knock on the door, my heart flutters. I'm too drunk to understand if it is excitement or shame.

When the knock finally does come, Julia springs from her seat and sprints to the doorframe. I stay in my chair, turned away from the two of you. The excitement shifts to bitterness, and I curse myself for being jealous of a six year old.

"Hi jellybean!" You grunt softly, and I can tell that you've hoisted her up on your hip - the afternoon pick up tradition. "Did you have a nice time with mommy?"

I can't make out what she says, but I am already guilty. My face floods, and I try to hold back the tears that start stinging my eyes.

You are quiet for a long time. "Go outside for a minute, okay my love? Daddy just needs to talk to mommy."

I feel a frantic dread at the sounds of your footsteps coming towards me. I stand quickly and try to stash my wineglass under the couch. Pathetically, as I stand, you are already there - looking at me with your broken eyes, the confusion, the disappointment.

"Hey, Luce."

You haven't called me that in years. My eyes fill and I am fidgeting. "Hi," is all I manage before I start to sob.

I'm not sure why you do this, but I'm glad you do - you walk across the room and you hold me. You're musty, like the warehouse you've been working on, but there is a familiar sweetness of you. The smoke, the sandalwood oil, your sweat. I was expecting the other side of you - protective father, the hot temper, the defensive and firm and angry.

I crumble, pathetically, in your arms. My knees buckle and my hands are grasping onto you, opening, closing - like I was the newborn baby that you chose to give your life to. My whole body heaves with heavy sobbing. Oh, my love. My only love.


	3. Chapter 3

We agree that I should take a break from visiting Julia for a few weeks. That's about all we talk about. Not her bruised cheek, not my blatant alcohol abuse. I think it was the right decision, to be away from her, but I am realizing as each day passes how much I miss _you._ I am filled with an ugly shade of guilt when I realize my favourite part of seeing my daughter was getting to see you, in those brief moments.

Your hair is starting to grey, in the most subtle and sweet way. You're barely halfway through your twenties, but I don't blame you. An artist spending most of his time at a day job, dividing the rest of it between your art and your child. I can't imagine what it's like to do it alone.

Max comes over a few days after the incident. I'm a few glasses in, sweating from the blistering heat, fanning myself on the chair by the window. If he would have knocked, I would have buttoned up my blouse, but he never does - stumbling into the room haphazardly, alerting me of his presence with a sharp and embarrassed "Oh!"

I jump, the wine spilling onto the rolls of my stomach, and frantically cover myself. "Jesus, Max."

"Sorry! Sorry." He sighs. "Are you decent?"

"Yeah," I finish the last button. "I'm fine. What are you doing here?"

"Just came to drop off some groceries." I raise an eyebrow.

"Groceries," I say, flatly.

"Yeah. You know the market's on today? They've got oranges," he reaches into a brown paper bag and produces a bright yellow-y citrus, "from Florida. They're good." He tosses one towards me and I let it fall with a dull thud next to me. Even if I were interested in food, I am far too drunk to try and focus on my hand-eye-coordination.

"So you came to deliver oranges." I am cursing myself for the way the words pour out of my mouth. Like cold syrup.

"Yeah," he fidgets. He walks towards me to pick up the orange, and I start to see the detail of my brother - the creases in his shirt, the blonde highlights, the uneven scruff he missed on his morning shave. "And, you know, to check up on you." He's holding the orange out to me, looking at me with his bright eyes. I feel like mine must be dim murky clouds of nothing compared to his blue ocean eyes.

I say nothing, and hold his gaze. I don't take the orange offering. I don't smile. I just stare at him, helplessly.

"You know," he tries, starting to peel the orange. "Being drunk all the time isn't very lady like. Mother would never approve."

I snort. "Fuck you."

"Yeah, okay." He hands me a peeled quarter, and this time I take it. "Have you talked to her at all?"

"Still no."

"It's been five years, maybe…"

"Six, Julia is six."

"Okay, well maybe it's time to bury the hatchet." He stuffs half the orange in his wide mouth, and the juice drips onto his chin, which he promptly wipes with the back of his hand. He sits next to me, on the floor. "It might be nice to have some support."

I have a hiccuping feeling at the back of my throat, and I feel the tears start to spring, but I stop them. I have far too much bitterness and pride to start crying about my absentee parents. "Max, you don't know."

"No, I do. They were shitty. They didn't understand that you wanted to give her away. But Julia's here, now, with us." He puts his hand on my knee. "For better or worse. And you deserve a family."

My face curls into an ugly snarl trying to hold back the tears. "I had a family. You, and Jude, and everyone else. So it's not 'for better or worse'. It's me, drunk and alone, living for the fantasy of pretending he still loves me -" I am out of breath and I am starting to panic. "When he drops off the little _shit-"_

"Lucy, _stop_."

"-that ruined my life!"

"Stop."

I'm silent for a moment. I can tell I've upset him, and even that makes me feel a bitterness. He loves Julia. He's always been good with kids, and he finally has one that looks like him, adores him, without the responsibility - the burden - of having one.

But he's supposed to be on _my side._ He is _my _older brother. The only person who stuck around through everything. I feel exhausted from yelling. I feel used up. I feel like I've taken the piss out of Max to his breaking point, and instead of trying to reason with him, I am turning away.

He stands, slowly. "Call me if you need me, okay, Luce?"

I pout silently, staring aggressively away from him.

"Just get through these few weeks." I hear the crackling of the paper bag. As he opens the door, out of eyesight, he calls out passive aggressively, "try not to drink yourself to death before then."

The door closes quickly. Not quite a slam, but enough to make me shudder.

I'm about twice as pathetic, carrying a grocery basket with a lonely box of Twinkies and a bottle of liquor, when I run into Emily.

"Emily?" I say, my heart filling with excitement. She turned, confused, waiting for her brain to connect the dots. God, it's been years. And seeing a familiar face in my hellish existence has made me realize how lonely I really am. "Oh my god, hi!" I rush to hug her, and she steps back, confused. "Oh, um…"

A tall man, in an ironed suit with cufflinks, comes to her side, looking slightly alarmed. "Can I help you?"

"Oh. Um. Emily, it's me, Lucy." Her eyes flicker from my face to my grocery basket. I tuck it shyly by my side. "Lucy Carrigan?"

There is a second that feels like an eternity before her face lights up. "Oh.. Oh! Lucy!" She finally hugs me. I wrap my arms around her, a big, warm embrace to celebrate our long overdue reunion - but her arms only touch me lightly and she immediately pulls away.

"How are you?" She asks, promptly and directly. She positions herself like a stranger, and I almost feel insulted.

"Uh, I'm fine. I'm fine. Just, you know, picking up some things."

She glances, with judgement, and then returns my gaze. "How's the baby?"

"Good. She's good." Fuck, I can't stop repeating myself. "She's six. She wears glasses." I sound like a blubbering buffoon.

"Six? Wow, has it really been that long?"

"Yeah. I know, right? It feels like yesterday we were sitting in my kitchen…"

She shakes her head quickly, looks cautiously and quickly at her husband, and then seems to get even colder. "That was a long time ago."

I feel a little embarrassed at my excitement. "Yeah, right, it's just been a while."

There is an awkward beat where we both avoid each other's gaze. Finally she speaks, "This is my husband, David," gesturing lazily to the man behind her.

"Hello," he nods curtly, staying in one place.

"Husband, wow." I bemuse, feeling a headache coming on. "Congratulations."

I can barely stand the interaction any further, so I feebly excuse myself - "Well, I better get -"

As she begins her own escape, "It was really nice to see you."

"-going. Yeah. Okay." We join separate lineups and walk next to each other until we awkwardly arrive at the exit, wave silently.

She is walking in the direction I need to go, but I pretend I'm headed elsewhere, and part ways immediately. I walk quickly with my grocery bag, feeling the sweat beginning to press against my shirt. I pause around the corner to catch my breath. To wait for her to leave.

What a terrible reminder of a past life. Of course she kept her figure, had a handsome husband, a life beyond high school. I start to think about how she used to look up to me - how she used to admire Daniel, ask me for advice. Follow me around to the local protests like a lost puppy. Just the way she used to look at me.

I sit on the grass in the shade of the grocery store, open the cellophane of my first meal of the day, and chase it down with a generous gulp of liquor. That friendly feeling creeps up on me again - disgusted.

I am disgusting.


End file.
